Stockholm Syndrome - Chapter Two
Fic Name: Stockholm Syndome - Chapter Two
Rating: PG-13 ish
Word count: 3875
Summary: Fernando Torres goes missing before his transfer to Liverpool. Sergio Deals with it in his own way.
Disclaimer: Not real, If it were, none of us would be here now. :D
AN: Sorry this is late in the day on saturday, after being in bed for the whole week, I have just about managed to claw my way out of it to come on and post. I knew writing some of the chapters in advance would be useful. Now I am getting a feel for the story, I am going to work on a discernible plot now, and so more should start happening in the chapters, from here on in. Yay. Thank you to everyone who commented, they were all lovely to read and motivating. As I said before, I wrote a large portion of this when I was drunk last week, so any problems, please point them out, as it is unbetad. Thank you!
Chapter Two
Sergio was sat at Fernando’s table in his apartment in Madrid, nursing a beer that was quickly warming. He didn’t quite know how, he felt ice cold.
“You didn’t answer your phone on Saturday...” He broached tentatively, eyeing the label on the beer as he passed it from palm to palm. He was fairly sure he’d known where Fernando had been, he just wanted to hear it from him. He could tell the other was looking at him, but he couldn’t look up. He didn’t want to see the look in his friend’s eyes.
“Yeah, Liverpool had me and Ollala go there, we weren’t allowed to have mobiles or anything. All I did was watch Liverpool game footage. Boring really, I’d rather have been here,” Fernando explained, sounding disgustingly casual about the whole thing, as if this was not one of the final stages of their inevitable long separation. Sergio was certain it would mean a lot less to him anyway. “I wanted to text you, or something, but we weren’t even allowed to leave the building, we spoke to my handler the whole time, and no one else, but it went well,” the last part was delivered with a hopeful, optimistic air that made Sergio’s stomach knot.
“Excited for it then?” he asked, gripping the beer tighter to stop his hand shaking.
“Of course I am, Sergio. Liverpool look like they can give me everything I want, they were runner’s up in the Champion’s League this-“ Fernando started, and sounded like he’d have gone on a long list of the benefits of moving to Liverpool if Sergio hadn’t cut him off.
“I know they did.” He said, a lot more harshly than he’d meant for it to be. He didn’t want Fernando to know he wasn’t happy for him, he wanted to put up a mask, but anyone who knew Sergio also knew masks were not his strong suit.
“What’s the matter with you?” the confusion in Fernando’s voice with the lilt of anger made Sergio look up, meeting the other’s eyes for the first time. The innocent look of not understanding just made Sergio’s mood worse.
“Me? Nothing. I am thinking of Atleti,” he lied, putting the beer on the table, purposefully next to coaster not on it, “They need you and love you, and you’re going?” He tried to sound as nonchalantly accusatory as possible, and finished it off with a shrug and a lean back into the chair.
“I didn’t invite you here for you to have a go at me. You don’t even like Atletico,” that much was true. Sergio had not been at Real Madrid too long, but it did not take long to get caught up in the rivalry between the two Madrid clubs, he was firm in his belief that the only really good reason for Atletico’s existence was that it had given him Fernando. Though with no other Madrid club, no other club for Fernando’s Grandfather to love, he may have been at Real Madrid. With Sergio. So there really was no good thing about Atletico. Shame.
“No, I don’t like Atletico, but do you know what I dislike more? Lack of Loyalty. You leave them now when...they need you the most?” Sergio flinched a bit at almost revealing his secret. His own slip just made his anger at Fernando worse.
Fernando’s eyes widened briefly then narrowed, “Sometimes you have to be selfish. I can’t carry a whole club, Sergio, it’s a team, they don’t want to hold me back, they understand, and so will the fans... eventually.” He paused for a second, after he finished defending himself, now it was time for a famous counter attack, “not that I expect you to, with your trophy club. It’s not hard to stay at a club that’s winning all the time.”
“Don’t turn this round on me,” Sergio said, getting to his feet so he could look Fernando directly in the eye, “leaving Seville was nothing like what you’re doing.”
“And what am I doing? Going to a club that I deserve more? Going to a city where all the people will be behind me, not just a couple? Yes, it’s selfish, but it’s not just about Atelti, it’s my life and career as well,” Fernando’s arguments were falling on deaf ears, “And besides, it doesn’t matter anyway, I have finished the kinks in the contract now, I am going and nothing is going to change that.”
Sergio stopped at that, anger gone, “You’ve signed?” he asked, hand shaking slightly again now without his precious beer to cling onto, “already?”
“Already? This has been discussed for ages; it’s not as if I have made a rash decision. Ollala is behind it too, she wants to see England,” Fernando was eyeing Sergio warily now, and Sergio knew it was for his change in demeanour, “are you okay, Sese?”
Sergio’s eye twitched at the endearing name, Fernando rarely called him it, and it hit him like a hammer now, he took a step closer to the other, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, eyes not leaving him as they got closer. It was like he’d forgotten how to breathe, he was exhaling and inhaling, he knew that much, but no oxygen seemed to get round his body.
“You’re abandoning me.” He had meant to say Madrid, he really had, but the Freudian slip was out now, not that it seemed to really register with Fernando. Poor clueless Fernando.
“I thought you’d be happy. We’re not going to be on opposite teams any more. I know you don’t like playing against me, now you’ll hardly ever have to. We won’t be rivals anymore,” the grin was meant to make him feel better, he knew that, Fernando was always trying to make him feel better, never wanted to upset him, always tried to put him at ease, but this time it just made things worse.
“We won’t be anything anymore!” He all but shouted, not letting the surprise in Fernando’s eyes put him off, “Having you against me was better than not having you at all!”
“We’ll still tal-“
“Don’t! No we won’t. We won’t be anything. You’ll be in England and I’ll be here, and I’ll never see you. You don’t understand!” He whined, his voice desperate now. He hadn’t realised how close to Fernando he’d become. They were almost at touching distance.
It was Fernando’s turn to be angry now, after being so placid for so long. It wasn’t often the calm, gentle hearted man got roused, so Sergio knew he’d really annoyed him now.
“What, exactly, won’t I understand?” he spat out, all venom and teeth, “If you think you shouting at me is inspiring me to stay, then you had better think again, Ramos, this is my choice, not yours. Who do you think you are?”
“I thought I meant more to you than some casual mention,” he looked into Fernando’s deep eyes then and got lost in them, all the fight leaving him and he stepped back to sit down again, and held his head in his hands. He wanted to cry, or drink, or just, lie down and not get up. Everything that made Madrid home was going away now, “You can’t go...”
“Why not?” Fernando’s soft, whisper of a reply came from beside him, closer than he had anticipated, accompanied with a gentle hand on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure when Fernando had sat next to him. He looked up into Fernando’s endless eyes and swallowed, moving a hand to the side of his face and stroked the prominent line of his cheek bone. In the back of his mind he noted the flash of confusion in the other’s eyes before he leant in.
“B-because I love you,” Sergio said, just before pressing his lips to Fernando’s. He regretted it as soon as he did it. As soon as he felt the soft hand on his shoulder go hard to push him away.
Sergio woke up with a shout, the bed sheets a mess around him from where he’d been tossing a turning. It wasn’t as frightening as an actual nightmare, but the apparent effects of it were much more long lasting. Sergio felt sick; sweat was tricking down his back and dripping onto the already sopping sheets.
He hated that dream. He hated how it made him feel. Hated how it made him act. He gripped the sheets in white knuckled fists, feeling the rejection pressing against his shoulder as if Fernando’s hand was still there, gripped against his shoulder.
After a second to catch his breath he was up and off the bed in a flash, glaring at it, as if it was the cause of his distress. He leant forwards and pulled the thin sheet off it, trying to expose something, but not knowing what it was, and knowing full well that nothing would actually be there. Nothing could hide in the white of those sheets anyway.
The sheet fluttered to the floor as he dropped it and he turned his eyes on the clock. Eleven thirty. Which meant he had over slept, and would now have less time to... do nothing with his day. He scoffed at the thought, relief at not having missed anything soon being overshadowed by the sinking feeling of how empty his summer was going to be. Usually he would be on holiday, pretending to pick up girls and sun bathing, but not this summer. His thoughts went to the man downstairs, and the trouble he was causing and he saw red again.
The clock had been a present from his mother before he had left, because he had a bad body clock. It had never deserved the sticky end it had been dealt at the hands of its master, being flung over arm at the other side of the wall. It was handmade in Camas, and would be awkward to replace. It would mean telling how it had been broken, which would not have been an issue if it had been broken innocently. Sergio was a terrible liar. At least he used to be.
He turned his heated glare on the shards of glass on the floor, breathing heavily still before moving into his bathroom. He didn’t let the water run before he got into the shower, and let out a sharp yell of surprise when the freezing water hit his body. This was not going to be a good morning.
He thought of the things he had to do that day, making a list in his mind as he shampooed his hair. He needed to call Iker, to let the man know he was okay; he needed to make sure he had something to wear out that evening. He needed to put away some of the non perishable things he had brought yesterday, and clean up the plate he’d neglected the night before.
The dirty dishes made him think of Fernando downstairs, chained to the wall, like something not human. The irony didn’t escape Sergio and he gave a dry laugh into the mist of the now steaming hot water.
Fernando chained up was something he had long thought about, even before it had happened in reality, albeit under less pleasant circumstances. He had often imagined the striker tied to his bed, vulnerable to him, mostly because Fernando was so assured most of the time. Shy, but assured. Taking that away from him, having him at his mercy, had been a pleasant dream before, but now usually brought with it stabbing feelings of guilt and self loathing. Not this morning.
He let his mind wander to how Fernando had looked the night before, with his hand tied to the head of the bed, the fear in his eyes, which Sergio’s brain had now managed to mistranslate into simple apprehension. He looked beautiful.
Like last time as Sergio’s mind wandered, so did his hand, but unlike the last time, he did nothing to stop it.
~~~~~
Not long after the shower, in which he had once again ended up crying in a foetal position, Sergio stumbled down the stairs, into the kitchen, and set about making a sandwich both for himself and for Fernando. Despite his teary end to the shower, he was still very angry at the other. The dream had brought back everything that had happened in the days before Fernando was supposed to move abroad, and also reminded Sergio the truth of his situation. He had Fernando, but he’d never have all of him, not like he wanted, and that was naturally Fernando’s fault. He was too good, too perfect, too kind and strong and generous. If Fernando had been anything less, Sergio wouldn’t have needed him so much, and they would have both been saved the problems. Wasn’t Fernando then at least partly to blame for what had gone on, even if he didn’t deserve it. Yesterday the answer was no. Today the answer is yes. Tomorrow? No one knew, least of all Sergio.
The sandwich was less cut in half as decapitated with the knife, as Sergio finished the preparation. It was not his best work, there was a distinct lack of butter on all of the side of the bread, and the filling didn’t quite reach the edges, so a portion of it would be dry, but beggars could not be choosers, not today.
Not wasting much time, he took the two plates of food and went once again down into the cellar, as usual making sure the doors were securely locked behind him.
He open the door directly to where he kept Fernando and stared for a while. Fernando was curled up on the bed, facing the opposite way that Sergio had left him the night before, arm was against his stomach, a tiny subconscious shield, and the other was resting against the pillows by his head. He had his mouth agape, letting out the soft sound of his breathing only as he exhaled, his hair had come down to cover his forehead. His expression was one of utter tranquillity, which Sergio had often imagined waking up next to, the tension gone from his face. He had never before looked the very image of El Niño as he did in that moment. Sergio had come in on Fernando sleeping plenty of times since he had brought him here, but he’d never seen him look so at peace. It softened him immensely.
Sergio moved into the room more, and reached out, to wake Fernando up when something stopped him in his tracks. It was tiny, barely audible, but it rammed into Sergio like a train hitting glass. He shattered into pieces much the same.
“Ollala...” Fernando breathed out, and the cosy scene was over. Anger flared up in Sergio’s stomach as never before, his fist clenching painfully as he looked down on the sleeping striker, blissfully unaware of what he’d done. He had to leave. Needed to get out. Or else do something he really would regret. He dropped the plate with Fernando’s sandwich on it, onto the bed, where is landed, fortunately face up and undisturbed.
With a last look at Fernando, Sergio kicked the frame of the bed and turned to the door. He took a moment to watch the realisation that the other had just been in a pleasant dream and was waking up to a nightmare dawn on his face, before Sergio threw a nasty grin at him and left, slamming the door in his wake.
He walked right out of the house and onto the street. Walking and casual exercise always cleared his head, and he’d need it if Iker and the others were to survive their close encounters with him in a few hours time. Going out with the guys couldn’t come soon enough to Sergio anymore, he needed contact other than the pity of Iker and the constant companionship of the unwilling spectre sitting in his basement and creeping in his mind.
~~~~~
When Sergio arrived to the club with Iker he was already fairly drunk. He had a fair amount of alcohol in his house, or at least he had until a couple of hours ago. Iker hadn’t seemed too concerned with his state, though he’d been making a lot of allowances lately.
They got straight in, Sergio didn’t even know the name of the place, but it looked somewhat familiar. They were all the same anyway.
Once inside, Sergio left Iker and went straight to the bar. He enjoyed the crush of the people there, all trying to get close to the bartenders to be served, and everyone struggling to be heard over the thumping bass in the club. It wasn’t even technically busy here yet, with it being fairly early, but it was busy enough for Sergio.
He downed four shots of, something that burned his throat and then looked around for people at the dance floor. On the floor were some of his team mates, some he knew had girlfriends and who apparently didn’t care, it wasn’t as if they needed too, people who went out with footballers generally tended to love the fame and money more than the person, with a few notable exceptions.
He froze in his looking for a second as he realised his inebriated brain was thinking about Ollala, and he turned on autopilot again to order more shots, before making his way up stairs where they seemed to be playing better music.
They weren’t, but it was darker on the upper floor and easier to lose himself in the crowd, pretend that nothing that was currently happening was actually happening in life. He approached some random girl on the floor, and started pressing against her, not bothering to ask. People more or less knew who he was, and this person surely would never dream of saying no.
His thoughts were verified as she pressed back against him, her head against his shoulder as she looked over her shoulder to see who it was. It had clearly taken her by surprise to see who it was, but the quick squeal of excitement that she let off was enough indication that she was not having any problems.
She turned around in Sergio’s arms and pressed up close to him. Sergio had to half admire her confidence, more often than not people tended to retreat into themselves for a while when he started to dance with them, before they opened up again. This one was over confident if anything, he found it less appealing.
It was when she turned however, that he could take in her appearance properly, seeing as that was all the mattered to him that night, and generally speaking he liked what he saw. He’d be drawn to the obviously dyed blonde hair, but she really was very pretty, with high cheek bones and bright green eyes that held a lot of laughter in them. When she smiled she had dimples and it showed very white, pearly teeth. Her body was good too.
Sergio knew how necessary it was for him to occasionally hook up with a girl. He couldn’t very well do it with a man, not that he had a problem with it, but there were no gay men in football, openly gay at any rate. His career would essentially be over if he was found with a man accompanying him home. Not that men interested him overly. He liked to say that he was attracted to people and to their individual qualities rather than labelling a gender on them. There was only ever one man he’d ever been properly attracted to though.
He shook his head to clear it and went back to grinding against the girl, who had now draped one arm over his shoulder as they moved together. Her lips found his neck and he closed his eyes, revelling in the sensation. In turn his hand moved to the small of her back, and after a while he directed her into an empty booth aside the dance floor. The music was less engrossing here, which appeared to give the girl leave to talk.
After a couple of minutes hearing about what a flattering surprise it had been when she had seen who it was, and how good he looked, and how he must hear this kind of thing all the time, Sergio grinned at her, like a predator and pulled her into his lap to kiss her. It felt liberating.
After a little more dancing and a lot more making out, Sergio invited her back to his place. He stumbled through the crowds until he found Iker, to tell him he was heading off, and inclining his head towards in companion. Iker didn’t look impressed, but nodded and clasped Sergio’s hand in farewell.
Sergio had thought Iker would let him go, but instead he pulled him back as Sergio tried to move away, “be careful with that one,” he warned. It would have been a whisper, but the loud music made it a shout.
Sergio raised an eyebrow at Iker, and then barked a laugh and took off back to the girl, who had called a cab for the two of them.
In the car, the true amount of drink Sergio had consumed came back to him with the vengeance, and he was nearly sick then and there. The girl, whose name Sergio didn’t know, didn’t seem to mind, just laughed in a tittering tone and waved her hand, as if it happened all the time.
After Sergio managed to compose himself once more, she moved on top of him again, attaching her mouth to his neck in what Sergio could only assume was supposed to be a amorous gesture. It just made him want to bat her off. The closer they were getting to his house, the more and more irritable he was becoming. He hid it well though, and just stroked a hand through her hair, looking at the roots, and letting a small smile ghost his lips.
It wasn’t long before the Taxi pulled up outside Sergio’s house and he helped the girl out of the backseat. He leaned over to ask the price, and looked round at the girl in the streetlight as he waited for the number and stopped dead. With her face now illuminated he could make out the splash of freckles across her cheeks, which had been hidden in the dim light of the club, and felt a stab of pain in his chest.
“What is it?” She asked, with a self conscious laugh, but Sergio just shook his head and turned to the driver, handing him more than three times the money.
“Please take... this lady where she wants to go,” he told the driver and turned to the girl again with regret in his eyes. He swayed on the spot for a moment, his head light, and his feet heavy, “I can’t.” He just about got out, before he made his way inside, leaving the girl looking flabbergasted on curb.
After finding his keys, he took of down to his basement. He had someone he needed to see.